Updated to add…Heading out of town this weekend so there probably won’t be anything new here for a day or two but make sure you known about the current contests!

In keeping with my post at Vamps and Scamps…I’m going to share a little about my life as a writer. 

• 6:45 am  Depending on whether or not I was allowed much sleep, I can usually crawl out of bed without the help of caffeine.  Of course if the baby bratlet had a bad night, that means I did, too, so I’ll need caffeine. Get dressed. Go pee because once the kids are up, I won’t have time.
• 7 am        Get the bratlet and the monster out of bed.  Get them fed.  Get clothes for them.  Nag them to eat.
• 7:30 am   Nag the kids to get dressed. Get the baby bratlet up, nurse her, get her dressed, changed, all the while still nagging the older two.  If I have time, I try to check my email real quick or peek at PBW’s blog        
• 8-10am    Out the door by 8:05, reminding the kids to get backpacks, turn off the lights and I double check three or four times to make sure I locked the house. Drop of the bratlet at school, take the monster and baby bratlet to the YMCA, because I know I’ll be too tired later.  Get them to the sitter’s BEFORE ten otherwise I won’t get half of what I need done today.
• 10am-12pm Check email, hit my blogs, do my read thru from yesterday’s work and whatever edits are needed, get some lunch. check the email again (I’m compulsive)  If there are any interesting blog wars going on, I’ll check them out and maybe comment once or twice, but its more fun watching others get ticked off.  Every month, I have updates to do one of the three websites I run, although I ought to do them more often.  I could update them twice and month and still not keep up.  Since I usually don’t eat breakfast, I’m usually starving by now but if I’m not, I’ll go ahead and hit the laptop and get some of the actually WRITING part done.
• 12-3pm Even though Judging Amy & Law and Order reruns are calling my name, I try to resist, sit down and WRITE.  Sometimes I start a little earlier.  Sometimes a litter later.
• 3pm time for a break, check email again… the DH is usually awake now (he works nights) so I try to talk with him for a while, although he says I’ve always got my nose buried in the PC.  Since I’m still nursing the baby bratlet, I have to take time out to pump and then I grab a snack.
• 3:30-5:15ish Work more, try to hit at least XXX amount of pages or XXXX many words, although I admit I sometimes watch Charmed while I’m doing it.
• 5:30 at the sitters, pick up the kids.  If it’s Monday or Wednesday, we try to go to taekwondo, otherwise it’s home where I nag the kids to pick up their toys, not to leave their socks in the hallway and please stop screeching.  Dinner time and while that’s going, I feed the baby, check my email and stop three different catastrophes.
• 7pm   sit down for some Law and Order reruns and if the baby is cooperative, I’m doing it with my laptop in my lap instead of her so I can get some more writing done.  All the while reminding the bratlet she needs to get her reading done, reminding the monster that he can’t pick up the baby unless I’m with him and trying to remember if I turned off the stove, locked my car, and when is the fundraiser money due back at school?
• 8pm settle down time, maybe bath time if it’s the right night and who had the bath last night?  Help kids wash face, brush teeth, comb hair…feed the baby, tickle the monster, remind the bratlet that if she doesn’t get her homework done and put away, I’m cancelling her riding lesson.
• 10 pm, finally it’s quiet again so I pull out the laptop, sit down and work while I watch Law & Order: SVU, sip on a glass of wine and try to get another couple thousand words written before I pass out at midnight.  If i’m lucky, the baby bratlet won’t wake up until 3:30 to nurse and maybe I can get a few hours of sleep uninterrupted.

You can probably tell that the writing is only part of it.  And it sometimes still has to get squeezed in even though I write full time now.  When I was working a day job AND writing…it actually was a little easier.  I don’t know why.   None of this includes calls to agents, talking with various editors about this or that or thisnthat, trips to the post office to mail prizes, trip to stores to buy prizes or office supplies or any kind of research. 

If I was more organized, I could cut out that 10-12am thing or at least trim it down, but hey… I gotta play!